Dillydallying tactics: ‘Haste in polls can disrupt operation’

ECP summons chief secretary to justify delay in LG polls.

KARACHI:

The Sindh government is delaying the local government elections due to the on-going targeted operation in Karachi, claimed chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah in an attempt to justify the provincial government’s repeated requests for pushing back the dates.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has called for a reply from the Sindh government today (Wednesday) to justify why it wants the local government elections to be held in March instead of abiding by the ECP’s schedule to hold polls in January.

“We do not wish to disrupt the targeted operation,” claimed Shah. He was of the opinion that once the operation was successfully completed, the elections could be conducted in a peaceful manner.



At a meeting with the British High Commissioner HE Adam Thomson at the CM House on Tuesday, Shah said that holding the elections at this juncture during the operation would disrupt the efforts of the law enforcement agencies. He reasoned that the police personnel would have to be deployed for election duties and will not be able to focus on the operation.

Meanwhile, the ECP has summoned representatives of the provincial government to attend a meeting at the ECP office in Islamabad on Wednesday evening. Chief secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiana will represent the provincial government at the meeting.

On Monday, the Sindh cabinet had decided that it was not ready to conduct elections in January as it needed more time to make arrangements for the polls. They intended for the polls to be free and fair, the cabinet had stressed. “We do not want a situation like Balochistan where mismanagement was reported in several districts,” the provincial information minister, Sharjeel Inam Memon had told media after the cabinet meeting on Monday.

On the other hand, the ECP had issued a new schedule for the LG elections in Sindh and Punjab. In the press briefing on Monday, Memon had said that his government had no intention of going head to head with the ECP, adding that everything will be resolved according to the law. He said that the government will approach the court if their request was not entertained by the ECP.

Sindh government has been saying that it needs more time for the LG elections to ensure all arrangements, including matters of delimitations, can be carried out perfectly. It has claimed that the polls, if conducted in haste, would not be beneficial for the general public and political parties at large.

Backtracking on statements

In October, the Sindh government had announced that all arrangements for the elections were being carried out, as directed by the Supreme Court. The chief minister had eagerly claimed at the time that the Sindh government was the first to have passed the LG Act-2013. He had insisted that it was now the responsibility of the ECP to ensure that the local bodies elections were held on time. “The Sindh government is ready for the task and shall provide full assistance to the Election Commission of Pakistan,” the CM had said on October 20.

The SC had directed the ECP to conduct the elections by November in Sindh but the provincial government had approached the SC and initially proposed December 23. It had then proposed November 27 as the new date after the apex court had directed the elections be held in November.

On November 13, the SC had again approved new dates for the LG elections after the ECP had claimed it was not possible to hold the elections on November 27. The SC had thus approved January 18 as the date for holding elections in Punjab and Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2013.